by Nicole Baart
“I have my camping badge if that’s what you’re asking. Boy Scout Troop 211. ‘On my honor, I will do my best—’ ”
“Good enough.”
They drove straight through the edge of town, skirting the heart in favor of the truck bypass and the few commercial imports Key Lake had to offer: Walmart, a Shell superstation, McDonald’s. Nora half expected Ethan to make some crack about craving french fries and a Big Mac, but he was comfortably silent.
“Turn here,” Nora instructed one last time, and they pulled onto a gravel road several miles past town.
“I didn’t bring my tent, though.”
“No need for that. Tiffany’s aunt passed away not long ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Nora bit her lip. Tried to make her words sound normal, light, though she felt anxious. “It’s okay. She’d been sick for a very long time. But she owned some land.”
“Okay …”
“A farm, actually. The main house has been rented out for a couple of years, but there’s a second place on the property, a little cabin that hasn’t been used in ages. Tiff and I used to hide out there.” She felt a smile crease her face in spite of everything. There was some beauty in the ashes of her past. “Her grandparents lived there up until the day they were moved to a home. They left everything the way it was.”
“What makes you think it’s still empty?”
She shrugged. “No one wants it. There’s nothing of value there. But if Tiffany came back to Key Lake, it’s where we’ll find her.”
Nora’s heart juddered at the thought and she squeezed her eyes closed. Be there Please, be there. She wished she had paid more attention in Sunday school so she could wrap a prayer around her hope. You can’t leave me like this, Tiffany. I don’t know what to do.
Ethan must have sensed the way Nora was feeling, the way her soul lifted as they rounded the final corner. He reached across the space between them, and when he found her hand, she didn’t pull away.
LIZ
“SIT DOWN,” Macy said, taking Liz by the elbow and steering her in the direction of the nearest circle of Adirondack chairs. Liz had no idea what time it was. Midnight? Later? It didn’t matter; the night had been a smashing success. The bottles were nearly empty and the raucous din had gentled into the intimate conversations and quiet hum of the twenty or so remaining guests. It was lovely, but Liz was a wreck. Perfectly put together and benevolent on the outside, a tangled mess on the inside. And though her heart was pulled in a dozen different directions—from her daughters to her granddaughter to fears about her own future—at the center of it all was one person. Jack.
Life goes on. The thought flitted through her mind, unwelcome, unbidden. What the hell was that supposed to mean anyway?
Of course Liz had known that her heart would keep beating after Jack Sr.’s body had been laid in the ground. She would weed the gardens and vacuum the carpets in the living room and even go on walks with Macy when the sun was rising and the morning was shimmering and surreal, impossibly beautiful. But these were her things, the world she inhabited with or without her husband. A Sanford party was altogether different. Or so she had believed.
But Liz had been wrong. There was laughter and fine food and music that floated out over the water and into the air where a riot of stars pricked holes in the night sky. How can it be? Liz wondered. Even though it was she who had planned all this extravagance, she herself who had made it so, she didn’t realize until Macy pushed her into a brightly painted chair—canary yellow—that it would work. She corrected herself: that it had worked. Gorgeously. In spite of everything. In spite of the fact that Liz’s life was crumbling around her.
“Oh my goodness,” Macy said, falling into the chair beside her (it was painted Caribbean blue, though Liz noted in some small, rational part of her mind that it could use a fresh coat). “We did it!”
Liz tried to muster up a smile but she was too blurred at the edges to care. How many glasses of wine had she had? Just one, she was sure of it. But there had been that hard lemonade, and someone had placed a glass of peach sangria in her hand. She didn’t remember drinking it. “I suppose we did,” Liz said.
“Well, I mean, this was really all you.” Macy laughed lightly. “I just posted the event on Facebook and made a few caprese skewers.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Liz was on autopilot, saying the things that should be said, though they made little sense to her. “They were delicious.”
“You had one?”
“Several.”
“And a few glasses of wine, I’d wager.”
“Just the one.”
But Macy winked at her and dissolved in a fit of giggles. Impossibly, illogically, Liz found herself joining along. They were almost hysterical, their outburst more appropriate for teenagers than women of their age and sophistication. Macy liked to say, “We’re not old, we’re elegant.” Elegant indeed.
Liz dabbed at her eyes with hands that, though strong and familiar, were covered in skin like crepe paper and lined with pale blue veins. When had that happened? When had everything started to unravel? Liz felt like her life was a tapestry that was unwinding all around her. Who had pulled that first thread? How could she ever weave it all back together?
“You okay?” Macy asked, leaning forward.
No, she was decidedly not okay. But admitting that had never been an option. Liz took a deep breath. Forced a smile. “Fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” And because she willed it so, it was. There was no handbook for this. Liz Sanford would have to write her own. If she wanted to, she could reach out and snag a star from the sky. Stand beneath the twinkling lights and sing a lullaby in her more-than-passable husky-sweet voice. Kiss a stranger.
“What is that look for?” Macy reached over and slapped Liz’s bare knee.
Liz crossed her legs primly, sweeping her ankles to the side so that her calves were accentuated. Jack Sr. had always told her she had gorgeous legs. Her stomach lurched at the thought and she uncrossed them again. “Nothing at all.”
“Oh, come on. I saw the way that Arie looked at you all night.”
It was true. Liz had felt his glances against her skin like a sigh. He had sipped wine from one of her stemmed glasses and tossed back his head to laugh at her jokes. There was something downright attractive about him in a pair of linen shorts and a white button-down shirt. Cuffed at the elbows, untucked. And no Vikings cap. Liz had hardly recognized him. Now she wondered absently where he had gotten off to.
“He left,” Macy said as if reading her mind. “But he didn’t want to go. You just didn’t give him a reason to stay.”
“I’m a recent widow,” Liz told her.
“Not that recent. You’re young, Elizabeth. You’re allowed to love again.”
“Arie Van Vliet?”
“Not necessarily.” Macy tapped her lips with her fingertips, considering. “You know, lots of people meet each other online these days.”
“Not a chance!” The thought lit a match in Liz’s chest and the flame licked clean any normalcy she had fought to attain. Suddenly she felt off-balance again.
“Fine, fine. It was just an idea.”
“A bad one.” No, Liz wouldn’t consider using a matchmaking service, and, come to think of it, her little buzz was really just the beginning of what would undoubtedly be a mild hangover. How long had it been since that happened? “I’m tired,” Liz said, pushing herself up.
“Leave it,” Macy instructed as she watched her friend survey the damage. The chairs were helter-skelter across the yard, dragged into small groupings and circled close to the two fires that were starting to burn low. The tables that Liz had set up, her careful presentation of food and drink and vases of flowers, were a war zone of tipped-over bottles and half-empty glasses, nibbles of endive stuffed with goat cheese and blood oranges wilting on napkins. While Liz was watching, one of the strands of lights flickered in warning and then w
ent out with a dull pop.
“Lovely party, Lizzie.” Kent came up behind them and slipped a familiar arm around Liz’s waist while curling the other around his wife. He had been almost paternal since Jack Sr. had died, sweet and protective in a brotherly way that Liz in turn loved and hated. Tonight, she loved it and laid her head on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said, and felt her throat tighten as she tried not to cry. Cry? For the love. What in the world was wrong with her? Clearly a single glass of wine was her new limit. She really was getting old. But that thought only made her have to blink more furiously.
“Remember that night when all those college kids joined the party?” Kent laughed low at the thought, but his words jarred an unexpected memory loose in Liz’s heart.
“I had forgotten all about that.”
“Me too,” Macy said. “I think I was too worried about the boys to properly enjoy myself.”
Kent guffawed. “No need to worry about them. They were the troublemakers back then, not those sorority girls.”
“That’s exactly why I was worried.”
It had been a rowdy night from the beginning. Maybe it was the fact that it was summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Maybe June had just been long and languid and slightly boring, and they were eager for something out of the ordinary to break the routine. Whatever the reason, when Liz had put up the flag at the end of their dock in her bikini that afternoon, there had been a boat full of unfamiliar coeds floating by. She had felt lovely, brave, and called the news across the water: “Everyone welcome!” Her invitation spread like wildfire around the lake.
“It was really more like a frat party than a Sanford affair,” Kent said, but there was still a hint of a grin in his voice. It was a fond memory for him.
Not so much for Liz. She slipped out from under his heavy arm and bent to pick up a beer bottle that was lying in the grass. There were several other pieces of garbage close at hand and she gathered them up in her arms, irritated at the stink and the mess and the sudden understanding that nothing quite turned out the way a glossy Better Homes and Gardens spread promised it would.
“Here,” Kent said. “Let me do that.” He took the trash from her and wandered off in the direction of the nearest garbage can. Liz had placed them at the corners of the house, out of the way but still easily accessible. Clearly people didn’t know how to throw things away. What was the world coming to?
“I didn’t like that party either,” Macy said, placing a hand on Liz’s back and giving her a familiar little rub between the shoulder blades. “Those kids were out of line.”
They had danced on tabletops and played an elaborate game of long jump over the fire. Nobody got hurt, but they just as easily could have. Liz hadn’t felt like a gracious hostess enjoying her own gathering, she’d felt like a babysitter who was woefully out of her depth as her charges became increasingly uncontrollable. When one of the girls did some sort of half-drunk striptease down to the string bikini she was wearing under a T-shirt and a pair of way-too-short cutoffs, Liz had had more than enough. But her proclamation that the party was over was met with indifference. They either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. So Liz went in search of Jack Sr. and the authority of his booming voice to back her up.
“We’re too old for this,” Liz said, waving away the awful memory with a flick of her slender wrist. She stepped away from Macy’s touch and sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t be like that. It was a great party.”
“Don’t try to cheer me up.”
“Come on, everyone had fun. You’re just feeling let down now that it’s over. It happens every time. You know that.”
It was true, but it didn’t make anything better. Liz’s emotions were out of control, a train of roller-coaster cars that had jumped the tracks and were careening wildly. Up, down, inside, out. Arch, contrite, exuberant, desolate.
“Thank you,” Liz said. “For everything. I think I will take care of this in the morning. Take Kent home. Get some sleep.”
“We’ll be over first thing,” Macy told her. “Garbage bags in hand. Oh! And coffee. I’ll swing over to Sandpoint and pick up a toffee latte for you.”
“Perfect.”
“Hang in there, kiddo.” Macy caught Liz’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Of course.”
When Macy and Kent said their goodbyes, the remaining guests took the hint and began to comment on how late it was. Liz put on her consummate hostess face, complete with a charitable half smile, and accepted the hugs and warm wishes her friends and acquaintances had to offer. She deflected a dozen saccharine compliments that left her feeling coated in a thin layer of scum, and then she said, firmly: goodbye.
The yard was empty when she remembered the reason she had thrown the party in the first place. It came as a jolt, a reminder like a splash of ice water against her warm skin. Quinn. What had happened to Quinn? And Bennet? Liz had seen them talking. The shock on Quinn’s face, the hug. Then they had disappeared.
Alone. There was really only one place for privacy on the expansive yard and it was the same place that made Liz’s heart twist painfully when she thought of that out-of-control party so many years ago. When she had gone looking for Jack Sr., she had found him in the small garden beyond the rose arbor. It was a secluded corner of the yard, hemmed in by a willow tree and a smattering of forsythia bushes that glowed golden in the spring. Beyond the narrow arbor, Liz had painstakingly laid flagstone in a nautilus pattern, the dark gray stones swirling in closer and smaller until the final slab was just the size of her fist. She had positioned a pair of benches in the private heart of it all, white wrought iron that felt light and airy, whimsical.
Jack Sr. had been there, sharing a single bench with a girl who was not much older than their Nora. Twenty-one? Good God, Liz hoped so. Otherwise they were contributing alcohol to a minor. Otherwise her husband was leaning over a child, a look of wanton lust in his eyes. Was he going to kiss her? Had he already done so?
Maybe Liz imagined it all. The girl popped up at the sound of footsteps on the stone and teetered, giggling. “You have a great place here, Mrs. Stamford.” Stamford? It could have been worse.
It could have been so much worse.
Liz hurried to the garden, heart thumping high and wild in her chest. What was she hoping for? She knew what she wanted when she set her plan in motion. When she spooned chicken salad with apples and walnuts onto tiny wheat crackers and stood on her A-frame ladder to hang Christmas lights in all the trees. But now. What had she done?
Voices. There were words slipping through the night air, catching on the thorns of the roses that covered the arbor. And yes, in the soft moonlight Liz could see Quinn and Bennet together, on the same white bench but at opposite ends, knees close to touching but not quite.
“Mom.” Quinn stood up, but not quickly, not guiltily.
Bennet stood up, too. “Great party, Mrs. Sanford,” he said, clearing his throat. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome,” Liz managed. “You’re welcome anytime.” What else was there to say? She had tied up so many hopes and dreams in Bennet Van Eps. But now she was just confused. Tired and disillusioned and confused. But something had ignited in her heart, and it was growing, building even as she stood across from her daughter and the man she once loved. This wasn’t about them.
“Has Quinn told you the news?” Liz asked, addressing Bennet.
Quinn looked shocked, almost panicked. “Mom, no—”
“I have a granddaughter.” The words were final. Absolute. It felt so good to say them out loud. Liz felt herself standing taller, drawing resolve around her like a cloak. “And I think we may need your help.”
THEY SAY HOME is where the heart is, but I’ve known for a long time that it’s far more complicated than that. My heart doesn’t have a home, but if it did, I suppose it would be 1726 Goldfinch Lane, Key Lake, Minnesota. My auntie Lorelei’s house, to be exact. White cl
apboard siding, diamond-patterned linoleum floors, old windows with wavy glass and a rime of frost around the edges all winter long. We lived in the same farmhouse where she and my mom grew up all those years ago, but I never stopped to consider how that must have made her feel.
Trapped. I know that now.
I don’t talk about my mom often, but I find myself thinking about her a lot these days. She was the younger of the two Barnes girls, but that didn’t mean much in Key Lake. Their parents—my grandma and grandpa—weren’t churchgoing people and kept mostly to themselves, which is to say, they didn’t have a boat. They were godless and boatless, cardinal sins both. People couldn’t understand why my grandpa didn’t, at the very least, own a little aluminum-sided skiff for the odd expedition. He wasn’t even interested in bullheads, and that’s saying something, because on warm spring days after a long, cold winter they would all but leap into your boat, stinking of mud and wet rot. I think he hated their flat, ugly faces and their stinging whips of whiskers.
I know I sure did. And believe me, I went on my fair share of fishing dates that began with hauling bullheads out of the lake (easy pickings—I once caught one without a worm on my hook) and ended with my shoulder blades cold and aching on the damp boards of many a rusty boat. But don’t feel sorry for me. I was a willing participant. More often than not, the instigator.
Auntie Lorelei used to tell me that I was the carbon copy of my mom.
I barely knew her. Okay, that’s not true. I didn’t know her at all. She skipped town when I was four and died not much later just outside a nightclub in Detroit. Why Detroit, I’ll never know, but I can tell you with certainty that she had not overdosed or been hit by a car or anything equally exciting or dramatic. It was an undiagnosed heart condition, according to the autopsy report. One second she was blowing her boyfriend of the week a feathery kiss, and the next she was dead on the pavement. Simple as that.
Not so simple for Lorelei, who had just inherited her parents’ poorly managed farm (they were aging fast and barely able to care for themselves, never mind a hundred acres of soybeans and corn) and was now the legal guardian of one Tiffany Marie Barnes, illegitimate child of her baby sister and four-year-old orphan. I was a gift by circumstance and luck (good or bad, I never puzzled that one out), for there was no will that declared me her charge. I had no father to speak of—my birth certificate remains firmly blank on that matter—and nowhere else to go.